Top 35
Prep plan
Updated weekly · Last refresh Aug 30

The Nielsen Data Engineer Interview Questions

The questions to prepare for a The Nielsen Data Engineer interview. Questions from real interview reports rank first. Updated weekly.

35questions
~5htotal time
Track your progressSign up free to work through all 35 questions and resume where you left off.
Start practicing free →
1
CodingStart here. 6 questions · ~51 min
Longest Unique Substring in EnoMedium
Practice

Use a sliding window and hash map to find the longest substring without repeated characters in a string.

Hash TablesStringsTwo PointersThe Nielsen
Spark UDFs vs Built-insMedium

Tests Spark extensibility and performance tradeoffs between UDFs and native functions.

sparkperformance analysisThe Nielsen
PySpark GroupBy and ShufflesMedium

Tests PySpark aggregation mechanics and understanding of shuffle behavior.

sparkAggregationsshufflesThe Nielsen
More Coding questions with a free account
2
Pipelines10 questions · ~85 min
Production Pipeline Quality MonitoringMedium

Approach for adding data quality checks, observability, and production monitoring to a data pipeline.

Data QualitymonitoringobservabilityThe Nielsen
Spark Submit ConfigurationEasy

Tests practical Spark job configuration knowledge for running distributed workloads.

InfrastructureDevOpssparkThe Nielsen
More Pipelines questions with a free account

Sign up to see every question

Create a free account to unlock this list and practice real interview questions.

Get my prep plan
3
SQL & Data Manipulation9 questions + 3 drills · ~106 min
Optimize Skewed Join QueriesHard

Tests join semantics and query optimization for skewed joins in distributed systems.

Performance Tuningjoin typesThe Nielsen
Increasing Prices Over MonthsMedium

Tests SQL windowing and logic for detecting monotonic trends across consecutive months.

Window FunctionsDate FunctionssqlThe Nielsen
Remove Duplicate Records in SQLMedium

Tests deduplication strategies using SQL and Spark transformations.

deduplicationData ManipulationsqlThe Nielsen
SQL for User Session TimeHard
Practice
Practice drill

Use joins, CTEs, and conditional aggregation to calculate user click rates with session start and end timestamps.

pythonThe Nielsen
Rolling 7-Day Audience AverageMedium
Practice
Practice drill

Calculate zero-filled 7-day rolling audience averages by region using CTEs and window functions.

Window FunctionsDate FunctionsRunning TotalsThe Nielsen
Average Session Time by UserMedium
Practice
Practice drill

Calculate average Nielsen Digital Content Ratings session duration per user using a CTE, interval arithmetic, aggregation, and a LEFT JOIN.

sql queryData AnalysisNielsenThe Nielsen
More SQL & Data Manipulation questions with a free account
4
Behavioral & Leadership10 questions · ~85 min
More Behavioral & Leadership questions with a free account
The finish line: interview-readyComplete all 35 questions plus 3 hands-on drills to finish this plan.